Holidays and Social Eating

From skwigg's journal:

This time of year I have lots of days off and lots of social eating occasions. I was thinking today how nice it is to just enjoy myself with no food or weight concerns. My rules and fears always caused me so much conflict anytime I was out of my normal routine. Now, my normal routine is to eat what I want when I'm hungry. That translates well into any situation, unlike my vegan, paleo, bodybuilding, clean eating, nutrition software phases, which were always a logistical nightmare. So, then there was a debate between staying "on plan" or going "off the wagon" and starting over at some future date. I'd feel more in control if I was a restrictive lunatic, so that held some appeal, but I'd get to eat all the fun food right now if I "cheated" so that was appealing too. I really thought those were my choices! NOT being a stressed out, all-or-nothing whackball never even occurred to me.

Will I gain weight during this time of festivities? Maybe, but it's never much and I don't care. There are times when I naturally, happily eat less and get a bit leaner. The holidays are not one of those. This time of year I stay the same or visit the higher end of my normal maintenance range. When I have less time off and don't eat out as much, I'll effortlessly drop back down. I don't need to take any specific action either way. The more relaxed I am about my eating, the more I enjoy myself and the better the outcome. Restriction creates backlash. Overindulgence does too in a way, because it makes restriction more tempting. I've talked before about the pendulum of restriction and overindulgence. Pulling it back too hard in either direction creates a big swing that's hard to stop. So, my approach with the holidays (and always) is to aim for the middle way, keeping the pendulum hanging harmlessly around the center. Overeating sucks. So does going hungry and missing out. The center is all about peace and satisfaction.

Hi Skwigg, I stayed off the scale for a month and gained a few pounds... I think because I was not paying as much attention to my fullness and was eating past appetite a bit too often. Please remind me of what you would now do to gently guide yourself towards better decisions but not be too restrictive about it - what are the right habits to focus on at any time, regardless of current weight? Thank you!!!

If you notice that eating in the absence of hunger or eating past satisfaction isn't feeling good or isn't producing the results you want, all you ever have to do is be a little more mindful. Are you actually hungry when you eat? Do you notice and enjoy the food? Do you remember your values and intentions? Do you stop when you're totally satisfied? Or do you finish what's in front of you regardless? Or get more because you don't want the eating experience to stop? The biggest part of it is just paying attention.

Your habits will be your own, but for me, the habit of eating what I want when I'm hungry and stopping at satisfied is the biggest part of it. I like three meals most days but snack if I get hungry or find something fun that I want to eat. If I'm too often: distracted, eating food I don't enjoy, eating for reasons other than hunger, eating without awareness, or forgetting my values (satisfaction, fun, health, abs), that's when things tend to move in the wrong direction.

But also see my holiday post. This time of year, I'm happy to enjoy the festivities and gain a couple of pounds. That's normal for me, just like getting a little leaner when the parties are over and the pie is gone is normal. It was a huge revelation to me that my weight doesn't need to occupy my every waking thought. If I'm even a little bit mindful of eating when hungry and not overdoing it, it's pretty self-regulating, no matter what's going on around me.

Skwigg, would you be willing to describe your thought process when approaching holiday eating?

Holiday eating is just like any other eating except with more socializing and more novel food choices. It feels celebratory, at least it does now that I don’t try to exert fear-based control over it. I still eat whatever I want. I still eat breakfast, lunch, and dinner every day. The differences are that I snack more because there’s so much fun food around. Because I snack more, I’m not always as clearly hungry for my meals, and because the food is so good, I may eat past satisfied a time or ten. I won’t eat until I’m uncomfortable or in pain because I don’t like that. I will own and enjoy every bite. No fear. No guilt.

I may not weigh myself for a few weeks. Nothing to see there. I know my weight will be up temporarily, from sodium as much as anything else. I know it will drop back down when I run out of ham, truffles, almond brittle, and Christmas cookies. So, why even worry about it? I used to be so intense about monitoring my weight and controlling my food. No good ever came from it. I’d either maintain some semblance of control through the holidays, ruining them and making them all about my weight (of all the stupid things), then I’d overeat like a lunatic a couple weeks into January. OR, I’d overeat throughout December with the expectation that restriction would happen January 1st. Neither of those produced a good mindset or good results. What works for me is: relaxing, staying off the scale, and mindfully enjoying whatever tasty food I come across, mostly to appetite but with plenty of flexibility for fun.

At the height of my diet madness, I would literally have nightmares about social eating. If I was out of my normal routine, off my schedule, not in control of the food, OH NO!!! That was the worst thing that could happen. I’d fret about it for days ahead of time. Even on “The Hunger & Fullness No Snacking Diet” (my early interpretation of Intuitive Eating + Lean Habits), I’d be beside myself if other people were eating and I wasn’t hungry yet, or I was hungry now and a meal was delayed.

I love what you say about how it doesn’t matter now because you’ve been feeding yourself well for a couple of years. Not a week, not yesterday, not your last meal, YEARS. That makes a real difference. I was always basing how hungry I “should” be off of what I ate earlier today, maybe yesterday, but if you’ve been restricting for years, your body doesn’t get over it with a few days of eating a little more. Chronic hunger turns people into edgy lunatics. A delayed meal feels life threatening, not in a ha ha funny way, but the same stress response as if you were running from a tiger. It would seem odd to me that everyone else was so calm and unconcerned about a 90-minute wait for a table when my central nervous system was all like, “TIGER, dammit! TIGER!!!!”